Light in the Darkness
by Amelie Nchinda
Summary: Aurora Lestrange is the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange. Raised by her Aunt Narcissa and Uncle Lucius Malfoy, she is harboring a dark and troubled past as she enters Hogwarts. Yet in this midst of impending war and past prophecies, she finds love. Fred/OC
1. Catharsis

Light in the Darkness

Chapter 1

Aurora sat at a long mahogany table, leaning forward as she so often did to let her long mess of dark curls fall over her face. This effectively hid her eyes from view of the others at the table, and allowed her a veil through which to observe the cruel, gaunt, and scarred faces that she had known all her life. A fire at the far side of the large room flickered a red and orange glow across these faces, but as the flames danced over their features Aurora saw something in them that was utterly unfamiliar to her; she saw fear.

Never had these faces ever shown even the slightest inclination of nervousness, they were trained to be harsh and vicious predators, never the prey, yet now they resembled young deer that were cornered by a famished wolf. Of course, no one at the table seemed to notice each others nervous twitches, but Aurora, who had always been meticulously observant of her surroundings and analytical of any potential threats, noticed these things immediately and catalogued them in her memory for a later situation. After all, when it comes to Death Eaters, it can be somewhat difficult to prepare for what is coming ahead when no one wants to tell a "senseless little girl", as Draco Malfoy had so referred to her when she had entered the room for the meeting. But now, even he was silent -_the scathing little ferret_- and Aurora noticed that he too was unusually nervous. The cloud arrogance that usually condensed into a rather pompous atmosphere about him was gone, and in its place was a rather irritating sign of his discomfort, a steady tapping of his pale skinned index finger.

Tap-tap. -tap. Tap-tap-tap. Slowly the sound began to wear on Aurora's nerves. Already she did held a great dislike for her cousin, and his newest habit was not wavering her opinion in his favor. Watching his finger bounce, she was soon entranced by the steady rhythm, and while still keeping a watchful eye on the faces around her, she began to retrace where her hatred for Draco had even begun.

Shaking a few more strands of hair into her face, she tried to recall the exact date when she had first met Draco, but knew immediately that even her great memory skills could not trace back to her infancy. Instead she focused on her earliest memory of the her hatred for him.

The memory was slippery, like trying to hold onto a slick bar of soap, and came in a quick flash. It had been just a little over four years after she had been sent to live in Malfoy Manor, with her Uncle Lucius and Aunt Narcissa recently appointed as her legal guardians, and a young Aurora had been silently snooping through her Aunt's closet in search of old photographs of her mother and father. Enveloped in her quest, the little dark-haired girl did not notice the presence of her bleach blonde cousin until he had effectively pulled one of her ringlets so ferociously that she had fallen to the floor. Then, he had stood over her, smiling as mischievously as a six year-old could, and then he had looked around at the array of photographs she had organized neatly around her.

"_Looking for your mum?_" he had asked her, and she had not replied, instead returning to her work in silence. Naturally, her lack of response frustrated him infinitely, and, knowing that if he harmed her again physically she would not be so forgiving a second time, he formulated a verbal follow-up. "_You do know why she's not here of course," when she did not respond he continued, "She left you, her and your father. They didn't want a little brat like you so they left. Problem is, they just went about their business with the Dark Lord, but they were stupid enough to get themselves caught!_" there he interjected a small laugh, but the sound was caught in his throat as Aurora leapt up like a cat and tackled him to the ground. For a few minutes she had wildly punched at him, and would have been likely to continue had Narcissa not heard the boy's cries and rushed in to pry Aurora off of her son. Draco had had a broken nose from the incident, and Aurora with a swirling scar on her left shoulder blade from a fireplace iron.

The memory came and went like a flash of lightning. One minute it was there, clear as day in the front of her mind, and the next it was gone, back to the delicate archives of her cerebral cortex. As her mind filtered back to reality, her dark eyes -emotionless and empty- involuntarily drifted across the room to the family portrait of the Malfoys that had been painted a week after the incident. There, a young Draco stood perfectly poised beside his mother, Narcissa, who was seated on a lavishly covered stool while Draco's father, Lucius, stood behind her with one hand resting gently on her shoulder and the other on his son's. If you looked closely enough you could see that Draco's nose was ever so slightly crooked and had turned a light shade of magenta at the bridge. The thought would have made Aurora smile, but the trickle of pain that coursed through the scar on her shoulder made her focus on her surroundings once more. Emotions are dangerous, she had learned that much over the years, and she knew that emotions were compromising in a world where only the strongest survived. _I will not be compromised, not again, not after what happened last summer, not after the events had unfurled and a plan had unravelled. Not after I had been left in a crumpled heap whimpering into torn and bloodied clothes like an infantile weakling in that desolate graveyard! I am NOT a victim, I am a huntress, I am the daughter of Be-_

Aurora's thoughts were cut short as she noticed that Yaxley's lips were moving almost silently. A conversation had been going on for quite some time now, but the words of it had been lost to Aurora. However, she had still taken notice of the speakers, and Yaxley was not among them, instead his eyes were fixed on her, and as she inspected him, she read off of his lips the last bit of his mumbling, "-_liarmus_!"

Filling in the blanks quickly in her head, Aurora swiftly pulled her wand out from under her black cloak, and pointed it directly at Yaxley, casting a counter curse without even opening her mouth. Taken by surprise at her speed, Yaxley had no time to retaliate and was instead left to watch as his wand sailed across the room, landing in the family portrait that Aurora had just been observing, and effectively piercing through the eye of the painted Draco on the canvas.

As all of the Death Eater's gawked at her handy-work, Aurora remained in her seat silent, and returned her wand to the pocket inside of her cloak. Her emotionless face remained as unfazed as it had been the entire evening, but as she looked at the real Draco, who was seated directly across from her, a flicker ran across her eyes. A flicker of red flashed in her dark eyes, it was only for a moment, but as Draco stared back at her from across the table he could have sworn that he had seen the flash of crimson in his cousin's eyes. But that was impossible, he concluded, and before he had time to question his own sanity, the doors at the front of the room burst open, slamming loudly against the walls on either side of the threshold.

"An impressive display of nonverbal counter curses, little Aurora. It appears as though Durmstrang has taught you well, of course, " The voice was that of a male, and as the occupants of the room turned their attention to the cloaked figure who had just joined them, they all rushed to stand in respect. All conversation had ceased, and no one dared to look at the man addressing their youngest comrade. He was rather frightening of course, the stories about him were all true, all the things he had done, horrible, disgusting things, and without any remorse or regret. No the Dark Lord, like Aurora, had purged those feeling long ago. Catharsis was necessary to survive in their worlds, and as Aurora stared boldly into the snake-like face of the Dark Lord that her mother had spoken so highly of in what few letters she had written from Azkaban, she immediately saw how he studied her unflinching blank stare.

With a flourish of his cloak, he approached her, ordering the others to sit down. Still standing Aurora never broke contact with the man -if he was even a man at all- that she had met only once in the previous summer. Then, her mother would have been disappointed in her, she just knew it. Her mother would have scolded her for not supporting the Dark Lord, for not helping him capture and destroy Harry Potter once and for all, but in one of his rare moments, the Dark Lord had decided to give the daughter of his most loyal one last chance to prove herself. Seeing her now, he saw what his most faithful Death Eater's infatuation with him had blocked from her great talent. In her daughter, he could groom the finest follower, his successor, though he doubted he would ever need one. Little Aurora had been weak that night in the graveyard, but she was just a child then, and in the few months since he saw how she had hardened to stone. She was an unmovable rock without emotion, but in the same breath we saw that she could blaze like a wildfire with her force and power. It was then, staring into Aurora's empty dark orbs that the Dark Lord resolved the conflict he had been battling throughout the summer, the same conflict that the other occupants of the room had been discussing as Aurora had drifted into her memories earlier in the evening.

It was then that the Dark Lord knew that Aurora Borealis Clytemnestra Lestrange would be his secret weapon to not only match, but to defeat Harry Potter. Like mother, like daughter after all.

Okay, so I actually already posted two chapters of this story, but I went back and decided to change a few things so...here you go. My first version had a lot of favoriting and followers, which is great, but what I would really like is some reviews. If I get at least one review, I'll post another chapter, if not...well I guess you all will just have to wait and see.

Amelie


	2. Flames

Light in the Darkness

Chapter 2

From the moment of the Dark Lord's return to his followers, Aurora had sensed the great affect it had on them. Even now, sitting at an oak desk in the small room she occupied at Malfoy Manor, she could clearly recall the way the Death Eaters had cowered before their leader in that foggy graveyard on that fateful night in June.

Yet, what she recalled more than the fear in their faces, and the terrified anticipation in their slumped shoulders, was the look of utter defiance in the emerald green eyes that had stared at her through raven hair plastered with sweat to their owner's brow. Those eyes had looked so fearless in that moment. Pain had coursed through the boy like an electric fire and a thousand knives covered in acid -she knew the feeling of the Cruciatus Curse all too well- but even though he had winced and thrashed in anguish, his eyes had seemed so determined. Determined to do what? she wondered. The question had nearly driven her mad all summer, and yet she was left just as clueless as she had been that night. Had it been determination to survive? To outwit the Dark Lord?

Indeed he had done the former, but the later had not truly been achieved. Yes, he had escaped death at the hand of the Dark Lord-twice thus far- but just like on all of those other occasions, his victory seemed to have only been won by pure luck, a twist of fate, some sick slide of hand.

Aurora had examined each of these incidents in as much acute detail as she could without physically interviewing anyone involved. Her investigation was thorough, yet she was only able to come up with one vague conclusion: Harry Potter had something the Dark Lord did not. She did not doubt the Dark Lord's immense power -no, that much was unfathomable to her- but "The Boy Who Lived" had escaped death one too many times for it to be coincidence, or a mistake. No, Harry Potter had a secret to his success, but with every great power there is a weakness to exploit it, and Aurora was excellent at sniffing out weakness.

The Dark Lord must have realized that Aurora possessed this gift for uncovering vulnerability, because later that evening, just as the dark-haired girl had become submerged in a rather thick book entitled Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them, a soft knocking at her door disrupted a particularly interesting paragraph about hippogriffs. Using a piece of scrap parchment as a bookmark, Aurora set down her book and opened the door to her quaint bedroom. There, holding a small candle was a house elf with hazel eyes so large they seemed disproportionate to its diminutive two feet three inches stature.

Despite the poor lighting of the lone candle in the otherwise dark hallway, Aurora knew at once that the creature was female. It was not by any physical characteristics -even her eagle eyes were not that sharp in such dim lighting- but by the sheer fact that she had seen the frail silhouette so many times before. Coosy was the elf's name, and Aurora knew it well from the many times she had heard it shouted out by Draco and her Uncle Lucius, as well as the occasional outburst from Aunt Narcissa. Yet, in the two years that Coosy had been "employed" at Malfoy Manor, following the unplanned release of Dobby, Aurora had rarely seen the elf up close. It was the sign of a good house elf, not to be seen or heard, yet a tiny part of Aurora wished that the elf had socialized with her as Dobby so often had. Until his release at the end of her second year of schooling, he had been her only friend. Now, she supposed, she did not have any friends at all.

Dressed only in the thin dishrag that had been tied around her like a toga, Coosy trembled in Aurora's presence as the girl stared down at the elf. Indeed, from Coosy's perspective it all must have been quite frightening. The Malfoy's had been cruel to her from the moment she had arrived at their Manor, and though young Aurora had never done anything to harm her, Coosy had seen the way her emotionless eyes stared blankly out the many windows in the household, and had been struck by the deathly effect it had on the girl's appearance. Paired with her pale skin and bone-thin fingers, Aurora's impassive gaze made her look like a corpse, frozen forever in time at the moment of her death. No pain, and yet no peace; just dead.

Finally the small elf spoke up, "Mistress Aurora? The Dark Lord has requested Coosy to bring you to him." Coosy's voice was a hushed squeak, but Aurora heard her quite clearly, and nodding her head at the elf, she allowed herself to be led to the Manor's master bedroom, which Lucius and his wife had somewhat unwillingly relinquished to the Dark Lord.

Once the reached the oak door, Coosy wedged open the door ever so slightly and peered through the crack, lifting her candle to see. Inside the large room green drapes hung from the windows, and the bed was covered in lavish silk sheets dyed silver. There was a fireplace opposite the bed, and before it stood the Dark Lord, staring into the dimming fire in front of him with his back to the door.

Coosy reached up her small hand to knock on the doorframe only to become frozen mid-motion when the Dark Lord raised a hand to stop her without even turning around, "That will be all, let the girl in and be gone." Without further hesitation, the elf opened the door fully so that Aurora could step inside, and once she had, a gentle swoosh of air and the click of a lock indicated that Coosy had gone.

As the air settled, Aurora remained silent, her mind patient as always though she subconsciously began to count the seconds as they passed. A total of eighty-nine seconds had passed since she had entered the room before the Dark Lord finally turned to look at her with his blood red eyes. Examining her for a moment he pondered the strange girl for a moment. Her body looked slender through her plain white t-shirt and her loose plaid pants, but he could tell, from the way she stood with her legs shoulder length apart and her arms crossed across her chest that she was strong. With her dark eyes, messy raven curls, and pale skin she resembled her mother, Bellatrix, in her younger years, but Aurora lacked her mother's curvaceous figure and wild eyes. Still, the girl had something about her, that made him curious. He disliked the way she never cowered as the others did, but in the same breath he admired it. Just like her mother, he thought for the umpteenth time that evening, and that was exactly what he needed.

"Now, Aurora, won't you please have a seat and we can get down to the matter of our little meeting here," he said gesturing to one of two plush armchairs that were situated in front of the fireplace.

She took her seat wordlessly, and stared into the fire mesmerized for a short minute by the flames before at last returning her gaze to the Dark Lord who was now seated in the chair opposite her studying her intently once more. The pair stared at each other for a second more before the Dark Lord began speaking once more, this time addressing his true purpose in requesting her presence.

"As you know, little Aurora, I have great plans for the Wizarding World. Ever since I was a young boy at Hogwarts, I saw that things were not as they should be. The leader's of our world have become steadily more daft in the last hundred years, and have yet to see the error of their ways; I intend to do my part as a citizen to help show them these faults. Mudbloods and blood traitors have been soiling the pure blood of the ancestors both you and myself share. Indeed I fear for the fate wizarding community, and as the only living descendant of Salazar Slytherin, I have taken it upon myself to fight for the purity of our race. Unfortunately, my actions have been somewhat delayed by the young Harry Potter, and after reviewing our encounters over the past summer I have decided that you could be of assistance to me in ridding myself of this little pest."

Here the Dark Lord paused in his monologue to await a response from Aurora, who had turned away from his intent gaze when he silenced and was now contemplating the fire before them. For a moment the Dark Lord hesitated, wondering if the girl had heard anything he had said, but after half a minute of silence, the girl spoke, eyes still seemingly entranced by the fire, "What is it you wish for me to do, my lord?"

Smirking to himself, he carried on, "My plan is simple and elegant. You will end your studies at the Durmstrang Institute, and instead begin attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the foreseeable future. There it will be your duty to infiltrate the select group of students that Harry Potter holds dear to him. Make them trust you, befriend them in the most superficial way, but get close enough to learn their secrets. Any information you gather will be submitted to me through your cousin Draco who will write it in his weekly letters home."

The Dark Lord was rather smug about his plan, it was just simple enough to work, and he determined not to fail this time. No, not again. Looking at Aurora expectantly, he was waiting for her to look at him excitedly, or with wonder at his brilliance, but instead she just continued to stare into the fireplace, and nodded her head once, "I'm in."

**I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and would like to apologize for the fact that this chapter is merely a filler. Thankfully, chapter three is already in the works, so if you don't stop reading this story out of pure boredom during this chapter your patience will be rewarded in the next. Thanks again!**

**Amelie**


	3. Envy

Light in the Darkness

Chapter 3

Aurora had stayed up for three more hours that evening, sitting in that same armchair by the fireplace, listening to the Dark Lord explain the details of his plans to her. The Sorting Hat would be confunded to put her into Gryffindor -because it seemed plainly obvious to both Voldemort and Aurora that she would be put in Slytherin otherwise- and she would have a new last name so that she would not be rejected by her peers upon arrival. By the time the rest of the components to the plan had been worked out, the fireplace that Aurora had been observing for most of the night had been reduced to a small collection of glowing embers. And at eleven thirty that night, she was at last dismissed to bed.

Nearly a full month had passed since her conversation with the Dark Lord, and Aurora now found herself standing rigidly beside the three Malfoys on Platform 9 and 3/4. Her keen eyesight was obstructed slightly by the smoke that emitted from the crimson engine of the Hogwarts Express, but Aurora could still make out a scene that was so utterly unfamiliar to her that she was left baffled. All around her, adults escorted their children across the platform. Some wore proud smiles and greeted old friends with smiles, while woefully kissed their children on their cheeks before watching them board the train, waving the entire time. It was unlike anything Aurora had ever seen, and to her the kisses and smiles were indecipherable; her brain could not compute the emotion behind the gestures.

She thought back to the time, not so long ago, when she had attended Durmstrang. It was a year to the day, when she had stood on a foggy, secluded dock in the Gothenburg. All around her was a scene of utter grimness. Her fellow classmates, all male, separated into two groups on either side of the harbor. These groups were based on the respective school houses, and there was a clear difference between the two.

On one side there was the Drakonya Krov students, horsing around near the abandoned ship building warehouses, and on the other were the Klyk Vampira pupils, standing in a tight group, talking amongst themselves. Aurora had always stood alone, however. On her first day at Durmstrang she had been sorted into Drakonya Krov, but it had not mattered. She was not one of them, she never had been. By school regulations she was not permitted to use the same common room as her housemates, or share the same dormitories -though she saw the rationalization for this latter thought. She was not allowed to play in competitive games with her house, only the weekly Wednesday scrimmages. In all it had seemed as though she were barely a part of the school itself, but Aurora knew, just as her classmates that she deserved to be there just as much as any of them. After all, it isn't everyday that the daughter of an infamous, and widely considered the most dangerous and talented, Death Eater came to their institution. They had made an exception for her, girl or not, she was pure of blood, and had Bellatrix Lestrange's wild eyes.

Aurora was shaken from these memories as her Uncle Lucius, abruptly took hold of her bony shoulder with the handle of his cane, "Over there," he whispered in her ear as he stood behind her.

Looking up at him for a moment, Aurora followed his gaze across the platform to where a group of tall red-haired adolescence were being pulled somewhat forcefully into an air tight embrace by a short, plump woman with matching hair. Aurora took careful note of each person, recording them in her memory, then turned back to her uncle, "The Weasleys," she said simply, and he nodded in return.

Releasing Aurora from the grip of his cane, Lucius studied the dark-haired girl before him as she analyzed the blood traitors before her. At first he noted that her eyes were intensely focused, most likely memorizing every last freckle on each person's face and cataloguing it into her strange mind. _She never forgets anything_, he thought to himself,_ and she sees everything. I wonder h-_ His thought was interrupted as a sudden change in Aurora's expression caught his eye. Turning his focus away from his pondering and back to his niece, he studied more intently.

At first he could barely recognize the shift his peripheral vision had registered, she was still staring at the Weasleys and her face still looked as emotionless as ever, but after a minute, he saw it. For what seemed like only few seconds, Lucius could have sworn he saw Aurora's eyes change from their usual shade of brown to a rich emerald green. Leaning in to inspect her more closely, he was met with a face-full of Aurora's hair as she ducked down to gather her things. Grasping the handle of her battered trunk, she picked up an owl cage from where it laid at her feet. (Inside the cage, however, there was no owl; just a small cate with brown, white, and orange fur, curled up amongst the newspapers at the bottom.) By the time she looked back up, to look for an opening in the queue of students attempting to board the train in an orderly fashion, Lucius observed that her eyes were the same shade of brown they usually were.

Watching her walk purposefully away from him and onto the train, all without a second glance back, Lucius wondered if he had imagined the green flash in her eyes. What he did not know was one vital fact, green is for envy.

Stumbling along in the train, Aurora felt like a sailor who had suddenly been thrust onto land. Students crowded the hallways in thick masses, grouping at the entrances to compartments, or congregating right in the middle of the hall to greet one another. The whole scene was chaos to Aurora, who was accustomed to the strict and orderly fashion of Durmstrang where everyone gathered in neat lines, and made a straight procession to their duty positions on the large ship that took them to school. _These children obviously do not understand the concept of synchronized movement_, thought Aurora, _such a simple ideal for organiza-_ Her inner ramblings were cut short when the train lurched forward, sending Aurora stumbling backwards. Just barely catching her footing before she tumbled to the ground, she steadied herself and watched as every student of the train suddenly ceased their conversation, paused for a moment and then began rushing towards the right side of the train, where it faced the platform. As she was pushed backwards a second time, she fell was unable to grasp hold of anything to break her fall._ I stand corrected_, she thought irritatedly, _they can move in synchronization, they just have no conscious knowledge of it._

Yet, just as she began to calculate the likelihood of injury should she A) catch herself with her hands or B) pull her muscles inward to brace for impact, two strong arms had caught her under her own and heaved her back into a standing position.

Noticing that the arms were still around her, she quickly moved out of their grasp, and turned to face person who had caught her. Initially she had assumed that the person would be about her height. She was just above average in that regard, standing at a slightly gawky five feet eight inches, but when she looked directly ahead of her, all she saw was the person's neck. Traveling up said neck, she counted the freckles there, and followed the specks up onto the strong chin of a young man. Above the chin was a pair of lightly pink lips that were curved around shiny white teeth into a broad smile, that smile, Aurora noted, seemed to reach all the way into the boy's cheeks, up past his nose and into hazel eyes. That was when Aurora became stuck.

For a full three seconds she was paralyzed, just staring. She did not know why, and she did not understand what was happening. All she knew was that she was scared and confused , and did not know whether she wanted to take off running, or stay transfixed in that moment. Without warning, all of the children that had rushed to the windows to wave a final farewell to their parents were now scrambling back across the narrow to rejoin their conversations. Still occupied by her mysterious savior's eyes, Aurora was suddenly shoved forward by the wave of people flooding back to their compartments.

Catching her by her shoulders before she fell into him again, the mystery boy bent down a bit to look in her eyes, "You look like a fish out of water," he chuckled then inspected her more closely, "but you're definitely not a first year..."

He trailed off, his brow creasing ever so slightly in puzzlement, and lock of bright red hair fell into his face. _Weasley_. It was then that Aurora snapped her attention back to the mission at hand, silently reprimanding herself at her lack of focus before.

"Aurora Clytemnestra," she said, using her somewhat new identity flawlessly. She stuck out her hand for him to shake, which he took into his own warm one, "I just transferred here from the Durmstrang Institute."

Just as the boy before her was about to introduce himself, another Weasley boy appeared beside him. This other boy was clearly the identical twin of the first, but Aurora could already notice the differences between the two. The first parted his hair to the side, while his brother had his down the middle. The first boy also had a slightly crooked grin, and only one dimple. _And his eyes_, thought Aurora, _those strange strange eyes._..

"So you're new here?" asked the second boy, grinning mischievously as Aurora nodded in affirmation, "Well in that case my brother and I would like to offer you a thirty percent discount on the newly improved, and recently tested, Skiving Snack Box!"

"Sorry," said Aurora, turning her back to the boy's and heading down the corridor in search of an empty compartment, "I don't accept candy from strangers."

The first boy, the one with the dazzling eyes, rushed to stand in front of her, "Then let's stop being strangers," he said with a smile, sticking out his hand for Aurora to shake, "Fred Weasley."

As she shook Fred's hand, George grabbed her other hand, effectively crossing her arms, and shook it. "George Weasley, the handsome and charming twin at your service."

"Where did you transfer from again?"asked Fred.

"Durmstrang," Aurora replied simply, walking alongside both boys as the semi-led and semi-followed her through the hall.

"Why the move?"asked George from her other side.

"What with everything that's been happening lately, my mum thought it best that I be at Hogwarts. Dumbledore is the headmaster after all." The statement was not a lie. In fact, she had not stated a single lie since she had begun her conversation with the Weasley twins. Her mother had thought it was a good idea for her to go to Hogwarts, although the motivations were not as innocent as Aurora might have conveyed. Additionally, her name was Aurora Clytemnestra, that was just the shortened version of her much longer technical name, Aurora Borealis Clytemnestra Lestrange. After all, if there was one thing that she had learned in her Survival class at Durmstrang, it was that the best lies, are laced with the truth.


End file.
